The laying of pipeline on the floor of a body of water is commonly accomplished by unreeling the pipeline from a barge-type vessel on which there is mounted a reel having the pipe wound thereon. As the vessel moves forward, the reel rotates, thus allowing the pipeline to unwind therefrom and to be played over the stern of the vessel and into the water so that the vessel, therefore, moves continuously away from the pipeline as it is laid on the water floor. Efficient deployment of the pipeline thus requires that the pipeline reel rotate about an axis perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the vessel.
Prior to deployment or unloading of the pipeline from the vessel into the body of water, it is necessary of course to wind the pipeline onto the reel. This is accomplished on shore at an appropriate pipe-fabricating facility where joints of pipe are welded together and then loaded onto the reel. In order to load the pipe onto the reel, however, it has generally been necessary to dispose the vessel with its longitudinal axis perpendicular to the shoreline since the pipeline, which is relatively rigid, must be wound about a reel, the axis of which is perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the vessel, since it is from this position which the pipe will eventually be deployed over the stern and into the water, as explained above. Pipe-fabricating facilities, however, are frequently located on inland waterways, and positioning of the vessel in the manner described causes the vessel to pose an obstruction to passing traffic in the waterway. It, therefore, becomes necessary either to interrupt the loading process and move the vessel to allow another to pass, or the vessel must be positioned initially adjacent and parallel to the shoreline and the pipeline loaded thereafter by bending the pipeline through an arc as it is loaded onto the reel. This latter procedure is undesirable because it imparts stresses to the pipeline and causes and other operational complexities.